I Was A Teenaged Art Thief

No lie: I really was an art thief, and no mere gallery shoplifter, either. I, with the aid of my alternately nervous and goading companion absconded with eight works from the walls of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. After years of reflection I have come to only one conclusion: I committed this crime solely so I would have a story to tell. This story. And I have told it, over and over, short versions, long detailed saga versions, recitations tailored for specific audiences (moms, say, or law enforcement), and I've written numerous accounts of the crime, its context, and its aftermath. I have kept at writing new versions of the story because I have been vainly searching for a meaning, a moral-- hell, at this point, twenty years on, I'd settle for a simple unifying theme. But both I and the story have grown old, and I realize nowwhat should have been nakedly obvious all the time: the Art Thief story has no moral, no meaning, nothing to teach myself or any other-- it is, was, and shall always be a pointless anecdote, no more no less. So, before we begin I'd like to humbly request that the reader keep two facts firmly in mind: one, there is no point or hidden meaning, and two, we gave them back.
None of the names have been changed: no one was innocent. The objects absconded were eight (or nine, depending on how you count) works of art from the walls of the SF MOMA, ca. summer 1987: four Paul Klee's, two Picasso's, a Man Ray rayograph, and an Edward Steichen saucy photograph of a teenaged Joan Crawford from 1935. One of the Paul Klee's had another painting on its reverse, and was framed with glass on both sides, so I guess it technically counts as two, unless (like us that night) you're counting frames, in which case: one. It still rankles me that the newspapers the next day highlighted the two Picassos which were simple line drawings, studies for paintings he did later, and only mentioned the more accomplished Klees in the body of the articles. The headline screamed in World War II-size type, "Thieves Take Two Picassos," and if that was all you read you'd think that was all that we took. Name recognition counts for a lot, at least with the yellow San Francisco newspapers.

The day of the crime began lazily enough. I, aimless & jobless, had followed my dubious but accomodating dorm girlfriend, a particularly high-strung LA JAP drama queen known inevitably as Kimmie to her new digs in San Francisco's Richmond District, to a house otherwise full of jolly Iranians, biding time until they were called back for another inevitable jihad. It was a nice house, but rather remote and fog-ridden and in those early summer days we were apt to accept any invitations elsewhere, if only to break up the monotony. So it was we found ourselves wandering hung over around some homeless art fair at Civic Center Plaza. We had been invited out by a dorm acquaintance, also newly relocated named Aaron Schock. Aaron was from Sacramento, and something of a rich boy we suspected, and his sexuality was (and perhaps still is) something he purposely kept vague. Still, he was a nice enough fellow, an art major like myself, and we shared a passion for anti-art of all stripes. We idolized the early Dadaists, Tzara, Ernst, Man Ray, the Merz guy, and had recently both been bowled over by the flights of mescaline-fueled abandon pursued inexhaustibly it seemed by our Top Fave Paul Klee. We spoke of these artists and others, criticized the works by homeless folks on display while admiring their unmistakable outsider status and Aaron, if I remember correctly, bought a trio of very simple, very loud & colorful oils of various bag people done my another bag person. Somewhere in their the theme of art robbery was raised; I remember Aaron took pride in a David Hockney banner announcing a forthcoming show he had stolen from a flagpole outside the Museum of Modern Art. We discussed openly and with enthusiasm how great it would be to "liberate" some pieces of fine art that we felt were being denatured, defanged, and robbed of their transformative potential by the bank-like surroundings in which they were housed. We spoke of which artists we would most like to steal, and what we would do with the work after the deed was done. Various ideas were suggested, I remember one: to take the stolen originals and sell them at a nearby flea market as prints to whatever lucky hillbilly happened by, thus returning them to the democratic gaze of working people. I mention all this as an antidote to the pure balderdash Aaron quickly cooked up later under the glare of interrogation lights, with the helpful prodding of reporters with an eye for the sensationalistic.

We Wear Our Masks Before Us

First: enough with pseudonyms, spoofing persons real or imagined, artful poses and outright hoaxes. You’ll notice I’ve altered all my profiles, consolodated some accounts, did some strategic editing, and have finally appended my real, own, legal name to this collection of rants and anecdotes. Using fake names is hack, beat, over, moreso because it’s so easy, almost expected in this Internet age. And don't give me that alter ego as conceptual art hack, either: Duchamp did it in what? 1914 ("R. Mutt": good one) and I gather the idea was already wearing thin then. I've had an epiphany, and I have no more room for nommes des plumes. My thesis this afternoon, as it happens, is the unintended consequences of the Internet on notions of "identity," and how this may turn out to be the most significant change to human life bought to fruition by the coming of the Internet Age. As for all the other changes, well: information has always been free, or at least tended that way (remember libraries and home taping?) ("Only that which is a product of freedom can be called an idea." -Proudhon, also handy for "Property=theft.") A dancing Lands' End catalog is still a Lands' End catalog. The English language her own damn fragile self is being slaughtered to some black parody of those bus ads one used to encounter: "F u cn rd ths an xcitng career in sectl arts awts u." The strongest kool-ade was the promised, bankable, rise in productivity that was seen as all but inevitable. We'd have more money, everyone, and more leisure (read: insignificant) time in which to squander it as consolation for the dull, soul-destroying deal we'd all apparently made with modern life one night at the pub when we weren't paying close attention. Well, the rise in worker productivity did happen, but meanwhile the clever folks at the brokerage houses were going somewhat bananas you might recall, and, well, you might as well know it, they (er, we, I guess- I didn't get no house, though, like some undeserving people I know) spent it. Just like Bill Clinton and the War Dividend left over when the Soviet Empire collapsed in on itself like a summer dacha of cards and we at least theoretically wouldn’t be needing those fleets of tanks and subs so urgently any more. He got it, and by the time any one got around to looking for it he’d already spent it. Remember those assholes you’d see who carried more than one cell phone and indulged in the bogus ill-advised transparent rennaissance of cigars? Those lofts didn’t buy themselves, and they weren’t cheap when every vested receptionist wanted one.

So what we’re left with is this twisted Moloch, this Frankenstein, this Golum of wires and backbones and servers, and the plain uncontested fact is that Americans are working record longer hours while real wages shrink, all to keep this suddenly vital component of world economy up and humming. “Open the pod bay doors, HAL…” “I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that.”

I recently tried to pick up the latest New York Review of Books, hoping to redeem some Borders bookstore holiday synthcredits (accrued by submitting to the equivalent of a demographic colonoscopy & using their little red card to [one can dream] track my disparate purchases and, using a nice collaborative filtering algorithm, nudge me in the direction of some content likely to appeal that I might have otherwise overlooked (and the free coffee on my birthday was a nice touch). I swear the poor, befuddled salesgirl took twenty minutes and typed more keystrokes and exhibited more angst than it took to launch Apollo 11. So much for saving time and effort.

No, the unforeseen, unintended consequence (the “thing we didn’t know we didn’t know,” thanks Rumsfeld— oh, nice war, by the way )of the Arpanet become Internet become World Wide Web become AOL become World Wide Web again was what a humbling lesson it taught us in identity. An existential concept, until recently (and probably still) there are those who insist there is no such beast, that identity was an American word to commodify something that previously avoided ready cash interchange, like “lifestyle.”

But most of assume we have identities, distinct personalities forged from genetic tendencies in the fire of experience, and most of us consider ourselves quite charming. Beyond this postulated authentic and unique set of tastes, experiences, attitudes there exists identity on another level: your official identity, the one that you might have heard crafty thieves have taken to stealing recently. It is widely unknown how much information can be gleaned by anybody about anybody with A) a good phone manner & judicious use of tribal jargon, B) the SSN (often the last four will suffice), and C) Mother’s maiden name. It used to be that identity was a stubborn albatross, hard to give the slip, solid and incontrovertible as your DNA has now become. Then came the Internet.

You know that delicious feeling of dramatic possibility that stretches out whenever someone who looks both credible and chatty takes the seat adjacent to yours at the outset of a long flight? Well, maybe you don’t… I was at a party of psychologists a while back, trying to impress two intense-looking Jewish women when one had the gall to say to the other, this right in my face, “Classic mythomaniac- you take him.” I chortled in what I hoped was a knowing way and ran home to consult the OED, shit, the DSM-III if it came to that. “Exhibiting a tendency to lie or exaggerate.” The “lie” bit raised instant defensive umbrage— I have an almost sacred concept of and respect for truth, one that includes and integrates its subjective nature, and I swear all of my rants and improbable anecdotes have at least a kernel of truth in there somewhere. I tried making shit up our of whole cloth, but the results were far less interesting, it was a lot more trouble, and it made me feel creepy. But exaggerate? Sure. Easy and often. Right now, even.

What you might call exaggeration is usually the result of a practiced bullshit artist having edited his tale to facilitate the telling, highlighting certain plot points or using outrageous, obvious inflation to make a point. The world is, and would only be more boring if people reported exactly what was going on in the most neutral, inflection-less prose. You’ve met these people: they’re like johns who go to comedy clubs because they and their friends are simply not funny. They don’t exaggerate.

And the odds are they aren’t big participants in the Internet. The Internet, I assert, made every American aware that they could represent themselves in just about any way they chose, that for the brief times they’re “logged on” they could be anyone, anywhere, and this immediately raises questions of the permanence of identity. If I get to, nay- have to choose how to re-present myself on this new social medium, then how rigid was this supposedly granite identity anyway? Have you ever dated anyone from a Net matchmaking site and noticed the disparity between photo and reality?

Frustrated actors and vivid fantasists were the first to seize the inherent liberality in online representation, Dungeons & Dragons types, used already to making up play personalities, and then experimental authors noticed the potential. If Joyce could use a different style for each chapter of a novel, why not a different author for every paragraph? I used to get into staged flame wars with myself, some other invented crypto-fascist userid, then the thing would take off for real while I sat back in my pathetic imagined lofty perch and croaked what I hoped sounded like diabolical laughter.

The malleability of ID was finally driven home one night when I was lurking around the lobby of Microsoft’s online virtual backgammon rooms when someone with a userID like “HungBeefStud0919” announced to the lobby in general that s/he was in fact a 15 year old female from Indiana, and were there any other teens about looking to retire to a friendly game? The response was galvanic: everyone from “LeatherBear99” to “DannysMom” admitted en masse to being, in fact, horny adolescent backgammon players and retired happily to some private backgammon orgy deep in the bowels of Microsoft’s mute, unjudging servers. And I thought: why the hell not?

This whole subversion of identity begins the day one first encounters the Internet, forced to pick a peck of userid’s and I don’t care if your surname is a Xhosa-Swedish compound and your first name is something your parents thought up tripping in some late 60’s emergency room: it’s taken. So right from the get-go you’re playing with the idea of labels, if not the labels themselves, and soon other possible uses for this malleability suggest themselves. Who doesn’t have at least three personal email accounts, the A-list for true blue friends who know well enough not to (re)forward the ostensible jokes latest urban legends that litter cyberspace. Then there’s the garbage pile, a legitimate address you can give out willy-nilly to any inquiring drunk or business trying to cobble together a marketable mailing list. Then, I at least, always have a special address just for list-servs, newsgroups and other push mailings without which I apparently cannot live.

Then Malcom Gladwell a while back wrote an excellent piece for the New Yorker that explored the world and implications of what is called "collaborative filtering," which is basically the software used by all your big eCommerce players to run their recommendation engines. You know, how Amazon and Netflix have those uncanny links, something along the lines of "if you enjoyed those, you might like these..." What Gladwell points out is that, far from being widely disparate in our tastes and secret fetishes we're actually not all that different at all. In fact, the more obscure and arcane your interests the easier, and more accurate a good collaborative filter can work on you. So there, again: the Internet slowly eroding identity.

For chronic credit risks and those of let's say unorthodox habits or tastes (habits & tastes that we'd rather potential employers not know about, at least right up front) this malleability of identity is a handy thing. But, as I recently discovered, too much of a handy thing can be problematic in the end. I have somewhere scribbled on the back of a bar napkin an idea for a short story about a fellow not so different from myself. He opens and maintains ten, twenty, finally an innumerable number of email accounts and online identities, each with its own peccadilloes and biases, that he finally forgets who his "real," original identity was. Needs work, I know, but for now, for me- everything is going out under my real name, consequences be buggered. Already I know from recreational Googling that there is some other cat with exactly my name who apparently has legal issues with the Post Department, and the fact that I was named after my grandfather but decline to use the legal "III" part at the end of my name keeps things just ambiguous enough as it is. Which brings to mind the existential hookah-smoking caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, and his apparently unanswerable query (to say nothing of The Who, circa '77): "Who are you?"

Shanghaied By the Buddhists: A Cynic's Lament

Look: I didn’t even want to go to Bodh Gaya, and I certainly didn’t want to get mixed up with some crazy Tibetans with their incessant chanting and (ugh) discipline. I was in India strictly for the drugs and girls, kicks, you know, good times? Not some hippy-dippy spiritual experience, no thanks; I’d givenBuddhism a spin back in the late 80's in the States, and found the whole deal confusing and, for me, guilt-producing. I’d practiced at the Zen Center of San Francisco for about three months, rising before dawn to sit zazen, walk pinyin, and seek liberation, and frankly all I found were a bunch of semi-comatose people who found ordinary conversation an awkward trial and a mean roshi who always seemed to be accusing me of some vague & indeterminate crime (hi Anderson-roshi!). So I felt like I’d been there, done that, and endeavored to avoid any and all woo-woo crap as much as possible while bouncing around Thailand, Nepal, and finally India. And for a long time I succeeded.

My traveling companion from the states Steve and I had only been in India a month, but we had already recognized a truth in other travelers: if one started to have a “bad” time in India, it was best to leave. India takes a certain slackitude, a readiness to go with the flow, and the minute it seemed some traveler got uptight (usually about some trivial shit like a mixed up breakfast order or missed train) things only got worse, fast (like losing one’s passport or contracting some horrible tropical disease). We’d noticed this in others, and made a pact that if either of us felt things souring we’d just hightail it back to Thailand and heated swimming pools, etc: civilization and at least a semblance of Western logic, cause & effect.

So it came to pass that Steve “got the fear” and decided to exit stage left, leaving me alone for the first time in the wilds of Southeast Asia. We were in Varanasi (Benares) when Steve decided to split, and was having a whale of a time- Varanasi is a very holy Hindu city, right on the Ganges where they cremate the devoted 24/7, and is something of a tourist destination even for Indians. Steve & I made fast friends with a motley crew of other young, male, international hellraisers, and the gang of us made trouble on those few occasions it didn't find us itself. At one point I took a casual inventory of all the drugs in our room there for my journal, and came up with heroin (scary good China, what we called “matchstick” cause that’s all it took), hash, weed, pharmaceutical speed (Dexedrine tabs), Valium, LSD, something posing as DMT that was scary but mercifully brief, mushrooms, and a few I’m sure I’m forgetting. There was Nandu, the cook/masseuse who would pause during his expert backrubs to hold & light a chillum of hash, there were plenty of traveler girls looking for fake husbands and easy action: fun town. We got into this flirty waving thing with the young girls who lived across the way from our hotel roof, and came back one afternoon to a lynching party looking for us, and we had to promise the manager we would ignore these flirty sari-clad beauties from now on, no matter how much they waved or sashayed. Their relatives had brought machetes & god knows what else, and after a little baksheesh changed hands and our lack of any intention whatsoever was transmitted we all retired for beer & weird German porno (the Indians, at least some of them, dig their porno, and I suspect this informs their low regard for the morals of Western women).

But even with all this fun and adventure Steve decided he’d had enough of India(one could see it in his eyes, we'd come straight overland from a six week Bataan Death March around the Annapurna circuit, and had been ripped off twice since hitting India- he needed clean sheets & a good long rest), and I had a decision to make. On the one hand, I was excited about traveling by myself: I was 19, foolhardy, it was my plan all along since leaving the states & it seemed a challenge I was up to. I was eager to sever all ties to familiarity and see what happened. I had vague plans to travel Westward toward Agra & Delhi, continuing the direction & momentum Steve and I had began when entering India overland from Nepal at Patna, the capital of Bihar to the East (only after we were on the bus on our way to Patna did we bother to read the guidebook and discover that, “there is nothing of interest in Patna, and best avoided by travelers…”- an excellent, hellish debut to India - I remember bringing a whole busy thouroughfare with taxis, tuktuks, elephants, cows, you name it- all come to a screeching halt beneath our hotel balcony. Our one-handed "namaste" salute went ominously unreturned by all, and between the hash & weird staring mobs we began to question the wisdom of India altogether).

Then there was Rolf, the Danish hipster and a prominent member of our impromptu gang, and his crazy story & related invitation. Rolf, who spoke better accent-less English then Steve or I, told this tale of breaking up with his American girlfriend yea about a year ago and had found himself cast into a pit of despair and lovesickness ever since. The liberal Danish welfare system being what it is, Rolf decided to have his generous dole sent to him around the world where he would try and outrun or at least distract himself from his shattered heart. He told tales of overland adventures through Turkey & Iran, Pakistan and finally Nepal. The point, Rolf said, was that none of this rambling really worked- he still thought of his ex daily, and was just as miserable as ever, only miserable far from home now. He had it bad.

So Rolf ends up in Kathmandu, Nepal, and fell in with some pleasant enough Western monks, adherents to one of the Tibetan sects, though he (this Rolf guy), like me, was dubious of spiritual solutions and promises and so was skeptical when these Westerners mentioned their Rimpoche, or guru, was returning from some trip to Europe, and invited Rolf to attend the welcome home party and meet said Rimpoche they were all gaga over. Apparently this Rimpoche was a young, Playboy-type lama who related well to Westerners, wore Armani & got laid like a fresh egg, and (long story foreshortened) Rolf was convinced finally it would be worth his time to delay his departure and at least meet this cat.

So. The day comes where the young, groovy Rimpoche showed back up, and sure enough there was much merriment and hugging, the guy reacquainting with his old students and merrily meeting new folks, strangers and well-wishers. Rolf said the guy did seem interesting, funny, and worth meeting, and Rolf followed him around the party, trying to attract his attention. At first Rolf said he sensed nothing odd: there were a lot of people, and the Rimpoche was busy glad-handing and guffawing, and always seemed to just miss Rolf, like turn just as Rolf was about to intersect his field of vision. Then, as time passed, Rolf said he began to get the irrational impression that this guy, this go-go Rimpoche, was purposely ignoring him: just as he’d maneuver into the Rimpoche’s line of sight the guy would turn and greet someone else. Rolf said the longer this went on the surer he was being purposefully ignored by this guy, and his anger grew and grew. Who was this guy to ignore Rolf, turn the cold shoulder every time he was on the verge of meeting him, and why? Rolf said finally the guy had greeted everyone else at the party and was begininng round 2, and Rolf, convinced now of a purposeful (though irrational) snub grew even more infuriated.

Rolf's ire was not confined to this snobbish (if fashionable) guru, but the whole scene, the sycophantic followers, the hipsters and hangers-on, and the way Rolf told it his chronic depression over his breakup coupled with (and perhaps even fed) the ire, hatred, impatience he felt for the whole happy hippy scene. He reported finally reaching a blinding peak of rage, and had just decided to tackle the offending Godlet Rimpoche & give him a bit of the what-for when the Rimpoche beat him to the punch and suddenly whirled to face Rolf and wordlessly embraced him. Rolf was a bit hazy about the rest, but remembered initially shaking uncontrollably and losing all energy, finally passing out altogether. When he awoke he found himself cradled in this Rimpoche’s arms like a baby, weak and confused but somehow relieved of all his rage and grief over his ex, and when gently asked whether he’d like to take refuge in the Buddha wisely said yes. The Rimpoche whispered his secret Buddhist name and gave him his mala, or prayer beads, and a knotted string necklace that served as a souvenir of their meeting. The Hipster Rimpoche then informed Rolf that there was nothing more he could do for him, and bade him to travel to Bodh Gaya in India (the traditional site where the Buddha was said to have gained enlightenment meditating under the Bo tree, a descendant of which still stands) and seek out a man called Kalu Rimpoche for further instruction.

So this was the story Rolf related, and the dilemma I faced: on the one hand Bodh Gaya was back in the direction I’d come (right below hellish Patna as it happens), and I had a strong inhibition against reversing direction and was eager to travel alone at last, but Rolf’s was a hell of a story, and I was more then a bit curious to see how it would turn out. I mean, a cranky soul such as mine can *always* coccoon, hide out somewhere, but the opportunity to follow some odd Danish cat on some vague spiritual oddysey seemed worthwhile, and besides I was curious about this Kalu Rimpoche who by all reports was pushing 150 & knew every card trick known to the planet. So, as was my habit with all dilemmas regarding complex decisions I threw coins and consulted the ancient Chinese I Ching, or Book of Changes, often a vague and frustrating oracle, but always better then nothing. I had never before or ever since received a response so unambiguous and clear: the hexagram stood for “Gathering Together,” and went on to say how forces were being mustered to gather like-minded and that these forces were good and should be submitted to. I had never received a hexagram that was so unambiguous before or since. I remember writing in my journal, “Well, looks like I’m going…”

The significance of the I Ching toss only deepened once we arrived in Gaya. It turned out that Kalu Rimpoche, the Big Poobah we (Rolf) was bidden to see was releasing some vital oral wisdom to a team of translators who offered to put everyone up in Switzerland or New York, somewhere a bit more convenient and closer to medical resources that the apparently ancient Kalu Rimpoche might need to avail himself of, but no dice. Kalu insisted it had to be there, Bodh Gaya, and then, Nov 1987, and could not be wavered. Some hippie told me it was somehow connected to the close of the "Harmonic Convergence" that was apparently going on, but you now hippies: unreliable sources by nature. Upshot, incidentally, was that the town was mobbed with Tibetan translators from the world over (interesting lot, btw, as anyone who spends the time & effort learning such an obscure language is bound to be) and, naturally, Kalu Rimpoche was extraordinarily busy releasing precious oral wisdom to the West according to some Tibetan astrology timetable . Pilgrims were pointed out to Rolf & I who had been seeking an audience with Kalu daily for over 30 days, to no avail. We weren’t hopeful, then, but decided to try our luck, about which more later…

First, the town. India, if you've never been, is much like you probably imagine, all hustle-bustle, psychobeggars, stressful, yes? But in the middle of these crazy towns one could find settlements on what is termed the 'Buddha trail,' starts in Lumbini, Nepal, old Siddartha's birthplace, on to some caves maybe 15 minutes out of Bodh Gaya where he faced the final demons (himself- the scariest kind), and then of course Bodh Gaya itself, the Deer Park where the B began his teaching, formulating the dharma if you will, and anyway it's amazing what oases these mainly Tibetan-run towns are in the standard chaos of everyday India- people are centered, polite, the towns seem quieter, quite nice breaks from the mad parade that characterizes the most serene parts of India.

Bodh Gaya was no different, and if anything,, better. Being where Prince Sid attained no-mind & freedom from suffering, with the actual tree and all, it should be no surprise that the small town serves as a one-stop shop for all the various flavors and variations on Buddhism, each sect with at least one monastery, and if you're into that kind off thing one can conveniently shop from interpretation to creed until settling on one most suited to the seeker's mood, tolerance, and foibles: seriously, a flavor for ever type. And that I Ching throw that led me into town proved more prophetic then originally interpreted (often the case). For it seemed the streets were jammed with not only odd brief acquaintances one had shared, say, a bottle of Thai rum months earlier with but also those types of people that one would,say, see across the tarmac at the Kathmandu airport and think to oneself, "Hrm- Shit- those people seem pretty cool- if we had more time I bet w'd get together and get into all manner of monkeyshine & guffaw, just on looks and vibe alone you could tell, given the opportunity you'd get along. Members of what WS Burroughs (and [the original] Jack Black & countless hoboes before them) deemed members of the Johnson Family... Anyway, for weeks one would hear happy re-acquaintances on the street, all quite unplanned and unexpected ("What are you doing here?"), so it was a "Gathering Together" in this sense as well.

And what a vibrant, varied, vivacious mob it was: everyone came from different backgrounds, disciplines, and invariably were experts in some abstruse field (philosophers, physicists, geologists, poets [big-time shall remain nameless poets, too, no moody college girls], famous rock musicians, art historians, classicists, and the amazing thing was everyone seemed to be saying the same thing, albeit from a different perspective. There was the excitement of shared revelation, manic mental jotto until the wee hours (plus just about everybody was practicing, sitting or doing the 100,000 + 1 prostrations before the Buddha and refraining from even hash, much less beer- it was kind of like a sober Dead show, were such a thing imaginable). I learned more about string theory, Akkadian worship systems, jet propulsion & a nifty quasi-shiatsu I impress women with to this day then I ever wanted... played some good chess games as I recall, too.

Anyway, back to Rolf and his impossible mission. Everyone at the local cafes assured us we were screwed and likely would never set eyes on Kalu, much less consult about Rolf's immediate spiritual future. We figured what the fuck, tho, and set out our second day in town for the monastery they had him tucked away at with an absurd, embarassing offering of fruit, sat in some antechamber for about an hour, and sure enough an English-speaking Tibetan nun came out and expressed regrets Kalu would not be able to receive us this day, but bade us return the next. We had heard that this was SOP, and we could expect weeks of futile visits, always with the "come back tomorrow" shtick and so weren't surprised or even miffed. The waiting room had a small complement of chanting kids & groovy thankas to examine, and I might as well get it out now: the Tibetans (at least out of Tibet) are some of the jolliest people on the planet, always horsing around & ready with easy smiles... A more naive soul might think there was something to this crazy, disciplined (almost anti-Zen) practice.

So Rolf & I went back the next day at the appointed hour (with a much more reasonable offering this time) and, expecting less than nothing tooled thru the main door maybe two minutes late.

Imagine our surprise when the King's English-speaking Tibetan nun from the day before rushed out and took us firmly by the elbow, chiding us as she led us huriedly along this maze of a monastery, "Where were you? You're late! Kalu has been expecting you, please hurry..." and through a dizzying Alice in Wonderland series of rooms with monks busy at all manner of practice, painting thankas, chanting, dinging their little cymbals, incense everywhere, left turn, right turn, we were quickly discombobulated, it seemed as though we might be going in circles but we stayed close on the heels of our nun guide when suddenly! Boom!

We were in some corner room, relatively small, occupied mainly by a bed covered with what looked like pounds of colorful quilts and, supported by equally psychedelic cushions, reclined the oldest;looking man I've ever seen. He was tiny, wizened, and wrinkled beyond all reason but, and this was an immediately noticeable "but," his eyes were like planets, lit from within with a sparkle that was kind of scary to stare at too long. These eyes were wide open, smiling, and seemed in the strange surroundings to emanate something not exactly visual... it truly seemed to me on first encounter that those eyes were the only thing holding this guy alive- he really looked ready t give up the Bardo, bodywise, and indeed his voice was raspy and barely audible. Besides the nun there was a young monk in the red robes whose job it seemed to be to lean close and hear what the old-timer was emitting, which the nun would then translate from Tibetan.

Rolf explained his story, the breakup, the Playboy Rimpoche, and asked what he should do next, and all the translation gave me time to look around- there were thankas and skulls, weird boxes of god knows what, and either their was a hidden subwoofer or the old man was chanting from like his pelvis. I observed the exchange between Rolf & Kalu (short version was he was bidden to begin his nundro, or aforementioned 100,000+1 prostrations before the Buddha (basically slow motion push ups & stretches with chants for each step [you could always tell people in the middle of their nundro because they were cranky & irritable- they said all that exercise got rid of whatever surface character armor one clung too, usually for good reasons]) and to find yet another Rimpoche because this one, Kalu, had scheduled his own death for early the next year- go figure.

So anyway, I'm there in the background sort of taking all this in when all of a sudden I have the certain feeling that this old man is reading my mind. I don't know how I knew, I guess I noticed the company, but my nnitial reaction was anger: how dare this guy, attained may though he be, how dare he violate my private inner dialogue(s). He was sort of smiling at me creepily now from his bed, we had a sort of staring contest (he won), and as I apprehended the smile I realized it wasn't so much him reading my mind as, say, the two of us sitting on a tree branch above my quotodian, ridiculous stream of consciousness, looking down on thoughts that suddenly seemed like dogs chasing their tails. I laughed & he laughed, and for a moment I really appreciated the perspective, a view I had never been privy too before, and suddenly the translator was addressing me.

"Rimpoche asks why you are here?"

"I, uh, am just here to support my friend..?"

"Rimpoche says for you, for now, zazen is enough..." How he knew I sat zazen is still beyond me-- "but don't leash the dogs." Which meant something then, damn if I can remember it now. Then he asked if I would like to take refuge and, impressed enough & well enough unhinged to squeak a quiet, "Yes, please," and the nun bade me approach Kalu's bedside where he mumbled my Buddhist name (which I'm embarassed to admit I never really got a handle on), fumbled in a big wooden box of tchotchkes and produced a nice Lotus seed mala I wear to this day, and gave both Rolf and I the statusy-spiritual-materialism little knotted string that indicated that we had been in to see the old man, blessed our white silk what we brought, and bim bam boom we were hustled out a side door into the glaring sun.

I kid you not, both Rolf and I were literally high, so happy to be alive and so in love with the world for two, three days after just being in the same room as this guy. Talk about inspiring.

So Rolf did his pushups for the Buddha & I freaked people out with my not-quite-closed-not-quite-open zazen eyes under the tree twice daily, Rolf attended services at the Yellow Hat folks, and I opted for the more low intensity Burmese Vihar (mainly because the abbot smoked, and I figured if he could, well hell...). The worst faux pas one could make in Bodh Gaya was to smack a mosquito on one's arm or leg (and there were millions)-- the noise would be enough to get a handful of people glaring at you-- the correct response was to blow the buggers gently from one's corpus. It was funny that way, all these silly rules, I had to appeal to the Head Burmese Abbot to back me up that nicotene was not a drug prohibited in the 5 Baseline Rules (Don't Kill, Don't Steal, Don't Lie, Don't Do Drugs, and Don't Have Weird Sex [You Know What It Is When You're Having It].

Sad epilogue is that Rolf & I both spent the next three months forgetting everything we learned at that very small place during that short period of time, were soon carousing & smoking hash like saddhus, actively seeking out weird sex. Still, the experience is in there, and years later I met a new Roshi who sat with me a bit and said, "Ah, you've met the Tibetans..," which through me for a loop.

And get this and I'll shut up: I was in rehab years later in Marin with a guy who drove Kalu Rimpoche around Taos, NM, the 11 year old reincarnated Kalu. His books (more accurately transcriptions of closely guarded oral tradition) are available with a little hunting, and I can recommend them highly.

On Behalf of the Buddha, the Dharma, & the Sangha,
I Salute the Divine Qualities Within You (Namaste)!

(Oh, and special props out to David, the Cult.Author for crackin the whip & getting me typing again. One Million Salaams.)

The Mountain Spy of Nepal

If the guy was trying to fuck with our heads, he was doing a damn fine job at it. We, the three of us, were high in the Himalaya, 19 or 20 days into a month-and-then-some trek around the Annapurna circuit, out beyond the one week boundary, beyond the quick up-in-and-out treks of the time-challenged, beyond the accomodating zone of semiprofessional "guesthouses" run with an entrepreneurial glee by a new merchant class of mountain Nepali, out past even them to the real world of Iron Age- lifestyle mountain farmers who opened a room in their family home to whatever weary Western trekkers wander that far up the mountain. The rooms are advertised on the edge of each small village in the most direct and unmediated fashion available: a gaggle of dusty boys and a few girls, all age 5 to 8, emerge from the town and claim giant white Western palms in their tiny little brown mitts and lead their befuddled prey back to the family roost, all the while repaeating placating mantras of "Hotel! - Sir! - Dinner!" And these kids were appointed accomodation agents on account of their relative mastery of the English language in the village . Some of these kids were quite conversant and would idly translate for curious older family members, and all of them possessed a business savvy.

Anyway, the point is, way up high here in Nepal in the Himalaya between mountain villages there are paths, footpaths: nothing bigger than a mule gets through. And, it is a fair assumption (repeated however silently many darkening evening upon the apparently unending trail) that a village or town lies within one full days walk on each of these trails. These trails are older then anyone remembers, and are noted for the lack of alternative. There is one footpath between every middling little village or cluster of huts, and no other.

So the behavior of the odd, well dressed man we began to spy one afternoon was, while on the surface nothing too outrageous, just enough off-kilter enough to distract anyone. For this man, who we were quick to nickname "Mr Spy" would be found on the outskirts of a town or village, an open beer half drunk before him and its empty mate next to it and his lit cigarette resting in a mountian of smoked butts, his apparently inexhaustible stack of two packs and a slim lighter. He'd look up and smile this Chesire Cat grin as we entered the village as if to say, "Oh, you again," but in a nice way, and after the first two or three encounters in the first two or three towns Mr Spy finally beckoned us over for drinks.

We were, as I say, three: myself, my traveling companion Steve Kronzer (a longhaired punk rocker like myself, but, better, an iveterate and imaginative liar whose outrageous and transparent series of lies nonetheless attracted circles of attention in the distraction-challenged mountains), and a guy we met on the mountain and had befriended in a casual way that is impossible elsewhere, a guy named Amir or somesuch, who was a 20 yr. old Israeli Army veteran who couldn't abide other Israelis.

The mystery was this: there was one road into every town, and one road out, and in each town we departed well in advance of Mr Spy. He would laugh heartily, wish us godspeed, and gesture us merrily on our way with a wave of his bottle. Then, in an increasingly unbelievably growing series of towns we would enter the next village down the road, and there he would be, Mr Spy, at his customary table on the way into town, one beer half gone and the ashtray spilling over. And we never saw him pass us, once, and interviewed a cross section of townspeople to confirm there were no alternate routes between subsequent villages.

Mr Spy laughed at our obvious befuddlement, but we were too proud to ask him how he did it. Instead we'd join him at his tables, shaking our heads laughing and order a beer of our own. He had a fittingly suspicious story to go with his suspicious activity, too.

He was 45, maybe an aged 40, and darkly tanned and lined like someone who worked outdoors, so when he said he worked most of the year on offshore oil rigs in the North Sea we took it at face value. His measured English accent and diction, his perfectly bland and yet perfectly tailored travel clothes, we were sure that had their been any women in our party they would have found him unrefusable. In addition to cigarettes and his swanky lighter he carried only photographic equipment, a bulky backpack of camera bodies and lenses, and though he said he was trailed by a porter with his extra clothes we never saw either the purported porter or The Spy in any other outfit then the one in which we discovered him.

We were on the back side of the chain of mountains, grizzled and experienced and with the tell-tale shaky pupil common to those fresh from the wild heights and were not tolerant of much bullshit. The three of us had established a nice pace and wordless ease, and though we generally trekked alone always stopped at every peak and summit to share a communal chillum of hash and tobacco. We had the high, lifeless pass behind us, and our ears popped as we plummeted down (and up) an unending series of mountains, through hash towns and dirty hot spring towns, each a bit larger and with a few more amenities than the last, and the dilletante weekend trekkers in their hot neon saw our crazy eyes, ropy bodies, and unkempt beards and gave us both grudging respect and a wide berth.

We finally ended the Day of the Spy in some town whose name I have long since lost, but I remember it was the first town where oranges were not only available, but growing in an orchard right out the guesthouse window, glowing in the waning evening light. We invited the spy into our suite of rooms and plied him with hash and Indian whiskey while he set up incredibly long exposures of us lighting, puffing, and exhaling monster chillums. I always thought those were probably pretty good photos. The Spy seemed happy and stoned, fussing over his lenses and tripod, and neither he nor we ever saw fit to mention the mindfuck on the trail.

So, You Want To Be A Junkie...

[This is an incomplete draft of a work in progress- it is being edited and amended daily, and I'd be interested in any preliminary feedback readers feel compelled to forward... J.K. 26.02.06]

No, you don't want to be a junkie: get real. No one, and I mean no one knowingly chooses social pariah status and all its attendant worries and camouflaged consequences, but by the same token no one becomes a junkie by accident, either. The descent to junkiedom falls somewhere inbetween: not a result of conscious will, and yet not pure misfortune either.

One unavoidable bonus of becoming a junkie is that one has cause to meet many other junkies: we tell each other from fifty paces. A certain look in the eye, a tell-tale aura of hunger, forget the confirmation of banal physical signs, the exposed tracks or satisfied nod on the subway bench. We find each other, compare dealers and product, notable highs and ripoffs, and generally bitch and moan like anyone who shares a common occupation. I've known probably well over 50 junkies with various degrees of addiction during my career, and I can report two facts unequivocably. First, again, no one ever set out to become a junkie. Second, once the needle goes in, it never comes out. Ever. And the consequences of each relapse seem to increase, it may be imagination by I sense with each shamed surrender to the seemingly inevitable an increased intolerance. Initially it takes much less to get high as it originally did (and anecdotal evidence is ripe with the tales of ODs occurring in tandem with relapses too often to be accounted for by mere chance), and the cost is immediately higher. Each descent is more rapid, and each kick is just a bit longer, more despairing.

"Why?," straights reasonably bleat. Why in God's name would anyone play with the one substance that has claims notoriety as the most addictive of them all? Well, you have half the answer right there: the reputation of heroin as a dangerous life-killer, a stinky theiving bum-maker, its rep as the worst of them all attracts those experimental souls who have exhausted the menu of other recreational drugs and been on the whole unimpressed, and through a serendipitous coincidence of curiousity and access another virgin samples this most forbidden fruit. There, of course, exists a whole mythos of heroin use and abuse that goes a long way to romanticizing the drug, to establishing appropriate dingy context and supply what skimpy codes and myths accompany dope & its abuse: Lou Reed & the Velvet Underground (they were actually speed freaks), William S. Burroughs (who famously considered heroin a "third-rate tranquilizer" (preferring the concentrated effects of synthetic pharmaceutical substututes), Steely Dan, Kieth Richards, jesus, Clapton, even John Lennon when you get down to it. Bird. Miles, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins. Ray Charles. So the subtle, yet pervasive background effect of bohemian romanticization combines with heroin's positively diabolic reputation, and inevitably the curious will stumble across a surprisingly presentable user, and it should be obvious even from even the most naive shores that every user is ipso facto a dealer. So: proximity x curiosity = virgin usage.

You'll probably smoke it (or if you're on the E Coast of America or Greater Europa snort it)- needles are a whole 'nother Rubicon- and discover, shit, 'taint that heavy at all. Downright pleasant, actually, facilitates a nice dreamy state, sort of like that sweet relaxed time in bed before sleep has taken hold, thoughts come and go with a rare and pleasing liquidity. Get enough into your brain bloodstream and you might even achieve the vaunted "nod," which, contrary to appearances is not pure unconsciousness but rather an almost total surrender to whatever stream-of-consciousness dreamscape your cranium can cook up (see DeQuincey, Baudelaire for reports back from this front, plus some of the more hallucinatory Burroughs) while still being connected by however tenuous a line to a actual physical reality: one can dream & trip beyond description, and yet still react cogently to one's name being uttered next to one's supine form... best of both worlds.

But probably not. You'll probably just take a little sea cruise, loosen up the mu receptors a bit, find the experience not unpleasant but not the be-all end-all you had been led to expect. And then you'll recover from your maiden voyage, your tabboo-shattering Rubicon crossing with no ill effects at all. If anything there might be a certain pleasant hazy hangover, lingering effects, but no sickness, no "withdrawals." Shee-it! you think, I've just hacked one of society's biggest no-no's, and there ain't shit to pay! Congratulations: you're now offically "chipping."

Chipping is any use of heroin (or related opiates or opiate substitutes) that is not associated with a habit. All addicts get their start chipping, and there is a certain number of lucky users who are able to walk the fine line and chip successfully for years on end without acquiring an actual, physical habit. As a very general rule of thumb if one uses heroin for a period of one or two days and then refrains from using again for a period of at least a week (better a week and a half, still safer two weeks) it is theoretically possible to avoid developing a habit. A mutual addict once made what seemed to me to be a piercing observation, to wit: most chippers do not recognize the effects of withdrawal even as they're experiencing them, and so are not so much immune as they are blissfuilly ignorant. Before a user has enough experience under the belt to recognize dope sickness for what it is it is easy to mistake the symptoms for a mild cold or onset of flu: the sniffles, hot flashes, and mild muscular discomfort are initially nothing close to unbearable and, as I say, are frequently mistaken or unnoticed altogether. It is only later when a user has used enough consisently (say for three or four consecutive days, or twice with only one or two days between usages) and suffered a taste of full-blown withdrawals that these preliminary symptoms are recognized for what they are: proof that the check, so to speak, is in the mail[1].

So most users and future addicts motor along in this fashion for months, if not years: using when heroin happens to be near or convenient, but not missing it when it is not, and certainly not seeking it out. Heroin, then, is seductive, but not in the way conventionally thought of (for if it were it wouldn't be genuinely seductive, now would it?). It allows the casual user the illusion that it can be picked up and put down with relatively little to pay and no serious adverse consequences. The happy chipper looks with disdain on bona fide junkies and wonders how they could be so stupid. After all, even the stupidest libertine knows that if one plays with heroin one is playing with fire, but the casual chipper can't see how one could wilfully allow oneself to use so often as to develop a full-blown habit.

And therein lies the root of the inevitable descent: wilfullness. I know of no junkie who at some point didn't acknowledge on some level that they were crossing a line, and yet for whatever reason or reasons kept on going. Usually it is some emotional pit, the effects of a recent romantic break-up, for instance, or the death of a close family member or friend that precipitates this foolhardy decision. True, the heroin does mitigate (or perhaps more accurately obliviate) any and all emotional pain, but the decision to go on ahead and acquire a habit requires another impulse. It requires a level of self pity coupled, or perhaps complemented by a contempt for society and its mores that feeds what is in essence a nihilistic decision. One knows one is fucking up, and one fucks up anyway. It is an impulse that is , paradoxically, a misguided attempt at control in a situation where otherwise all control is lost. One says, "well, she left me, or so-and-so died, and there is nothing to be done about that, and the bromides and sympathetic words and advice of well-wishers only serve to infuriate, but here, finally, is something I can do that will at once cure the pain I suffer under and give the finger to the bitch fate that says such suffering is inevitable." And so the casual user piles two, three, four days, maybe a week of usage up, a real binge, and only then, belatedly, decides to take a few days off and discovers what is now at the end of their fork[2].

And lo! A new junkie is born. Immediately the neophyte apprehends the dismal advantages of his or her new position: the most rudimentary program of personal hygiene is strictly optional, apparently, and short of the scurrying inherent in hustling, scoring, and fixing, it is a tranquil existence.



[1] Nod to Roddy Doyle, screenwriter (and originally author) of the essential brick in the junkie canon "Trainspotting" for this usage- "the check is in the mail" describes aptly the recognition of the onset of withdrawal symptoms- the yawns, the irritablility, and the body's incredible increase in the production of all fluids- eyes water, nose runs, spit accumulates- it's unmistakeable.

[2] Similar credit where due to W.S. Burroughs, or more accurately Kerouac, I guess, who gave the title for Burrough's seminal work "Naked Lunch" which Bill liked because he said it described that moment where maya and illusion lift and the casual midday diner sees with alarming clarity what it is exactly that is at the end of his or her fork... which one either gets or not.

Dick Clark's Rockin' 2012 Apocalypse

I've been expecting the eschaton and leading my life as though it
were imminent for some time now, and frankly I am getting a
bit impatient. Since 2004 obviously didn't pan out I'm now putting my
chips on 2012 for the sheer inordinately large number of citations of
it as the ultimate, or at least a notable (and not in a good way) year.
A cursory and noninclusive iteration of predictions &/or causes for
EndTime:MMXII includes (in no particular order) A) the fact that it's
the last year in the Mayan Calendar, which while the specific
implications may be ambiguous, most Codex Scholars agree it can't be
anything good[1], B) Tibetan astrologers and remote viewers forecasting
global thermonuclear warfare AND timely intervention by UFOs[3], C)
the Bible Code's ETA for yet another killer comet on the way[2], D)
reversal of both the Sun & Earth's magnetic poles, bound to be
disorienting at best[2], E) the date beyond which CG Jung could not see
when he was plumbing the Collective Unconscious when compiling his
Red Book, and would get irritable and tetchy when questioned further[4],
F) Terrence McKenna's carefully worked out scientific date for the
culmination of his Novelty Theory wherein the measureable and
accelerating process of human innovation will reach critical mass,
promising an encounter with a transdimensional object and (deep breath)
Hyperspatial Breakthrough, Planetesimal Impact, Alien Contact,
Historical Metamorphosis, Metamorphosis of Natural Law, Solar
Explosion, Quasar Ignition at theGalactic Core[5], G) the beginning of
the Fifth World predicted by Hopi prophecy, promising Global
Thermonuclear Warfare & a final Manichean-type showdown between
matter & spirit[6], H) the projected arrival date of Carl the Unfortunate
whose arrival will be heralded simultaneously as i. Christ's Return, ii. the
Antichrist, iii. the Maitreya or reincarnation of Lord Buddha, iv. the
promised Jewish Me'khia, v. the return of the Shi'ite 12th Imam, vi. the
False Prophet foretold by certain Sunni, vii. the return of a certain alien
species that interferes w/ human destiny, etc., which even though Carl
will strenuously disavow any connection to any of these holy &/or unholy
figures, and insist he's just a regular guy like you or me will still cause
mass confusion & name-calling[7]. If only one fourth of these forecast
events come to pass 2012 promises to be quite a busy year indeed.
And you gave up smoking!

[1] http://www.levity.com/eschaton/Why2012.html
[2] http://www.religioustolerance. org/end_wrl18.htm
[3] http://www.indiadaily.com/edit orial/12-26-04.asp
[4] can't locate a cite, but remember this bit from a Jung biopic,
specifically an interview part with Jung scholar Laurens van der Post,
right before he chides the immaturity of human's thinking we can trash
this planet & just amscray into some outer space colony &/or have our
asses miraculously saved by Benevolent Space Brothers (see fn [2])
[5] http://www.levity.com/eschaton /finalillusion.html
[6] http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow/prophecy/hopi1.html
[7] comments overheard in drunken rant by Doug, Self-Appointed Advance
Man for Carl the Unfortunate, 17 Aug 2005, Mooney's Pub, Br'klyn NYC

New York Is Dying

Anybody catch the cover story in the Voice a few weeks back, about the German girl who scammed a handful of unfortunates by using a spare key & advertising for roommates & taking a bunch of deposits, only to exit stage left with the money and miss the spectacle of ten moving vans pulling up at once? Hi-larious, and almost poetic. She was sick of NYC and all the pathetic, desperate angling for nickels and dimes, and instead of just calling it a day and humbly moving on decided to pull a Dada stunt in the prevailing fuck-you ethos & make a tidy sum while at it.

And you know, I understand where she was coming from. I was born and raised in SF, but my dad was a native NYer & we visited every summer during the hoary days of the late 70s, and then in the late 80s I opted to decline admission to some more prestigious Ivy League schools in favor of NYU, just so I could live here. And it was worth it: there may have been more crime & graffiti & gen'l urban mayhem, but it was the capital of the fucking world & evidenced it without making a big to-do. So two & 1/2 years ago I jumped at the chance to relo here with the consulting firm I work for, and in my mind return to Civilization. Now I can't wait to get the high hell out, and after you read this you'll be looking forward to my exit, too...

See, NY is fundamentally upfucked, and shows no sign of righting herself. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to realize that a lot of this relates to the lingering effects of the monstrosity of 9/11... There's a lot of sadness just under the surface here, and I understand the impulse to soldier on and not dwell unduly, but the gen'l reliance on NY's famous character armor and tacit agreement to not talk about the consequences of that nighmare, and the decline of NY in general doesn't appear to be working real well either.

So, here, before I decamp for the mellower shore let me piss everybody off & start the conversation. What used to be an exhilarating and unavoidable general momentum that sharpened everyone's instincts seems to me to have degenerated into pathetic desperate angling for nickels and dimes, the old desire to fuck before being fucked, but like on steroids. Even friends, it seems to me, constantly look for leverage & take quiet inner satisfaction out of one free beer cadged out of anyone too stupid to keep track of rounds. And transplants are the worst: moving to NY gives them the license to find that inner asshole they always knew they had inside. At least natives don't know anything else, this hell's just the status miserable quo. And the City That Never Sleeps apparently sleeps now, and a lot. I used to dig how even at 4:30 am there'd be literal crowds out. No more. I took a livery car home to Br'klyn one morning recently and it was a fucking ghost town out. I remember laughing inwardly during the late 80s at the pretense of going to a West Side club, ordering a drink, and immediately deciding that the bar sucked and taking a cab to the East Side, and then repeating the process on arrival, having a coke-fueled hunt for the Perfect Scene which, amazingly, was findable with a little luck, timing, and the right connections. Now people are happy if they can get home, pull a (overpriced) bongload and sack out before Charlie Rose signs off. I know, everyone has to work hard to pay the rent, but there used to be a point to it, one worked hard but had ready access to wild anarchic subcultures, scenes and salons.

Exactly whose quality of life was improved by busting pot smokers & turnstile jumpers? I was dragged out of my car KGB style and digested through the maw of Central Booking for the crime of being an idiot and daring to take a toke with my girlfriend on the LES, and the kicker was the cops immediately started apologizing and giving me the old, "If it was up to us.., you seem cool, etc" which, you know: fuck you. Either arrest me or don't. Preferably the latter: it's weed. There's a zillion other pressing concerns. And all those cops fingering the tiny internal pockets of any boho looking cat's backpack at the subway are not looking for bombs. Be real.

And until very recently any punk kid could show up from Eau Claire or wherever & find a roommate situation in the admittedly sketchy LES or Alphabet City for a couple hundred. Now, forget it. They're gentrifying Red Hook! Red Hook! There's literally no margins left to get a foothold, at least not within an hour's subway ride. And no margins means no artists, writers, freakazoids. Just the aforementioned fuck-you-fuck-me species of uberyuppies and the poor wretches who slouch in from the boroughs to service them. Fucking sad. There used to be compensation for all the aggravations of NY life is I guess what I'm getting at, but no more. It's all tidied up for the tourists, and the cops own the streets (seriously: that shit during the Repub Conv would've inspired literal overturn-the-cop-car-and-set-it-aflame riots in SF- cordoning off blocks on scooters! The very fucking idea. That dude kicking and punching the undercover goon who was revving into the crowd was cool, tho.). I miss, mourn, and pine for the old NY (god what an eternal refrain), and until (god forbid) another Incident clears the City of the casual opportunists & does something about the obscene rental market you can color me gone.

And the fucking weather! Heh.

Carl the Unfortunate

On 16 Aug 2005 at 1415 GMT a press conference was held, hastily arranged by a shadowy group calling itself the "Dada-sub-rosa Moto Kult, Gavrilo Princips Kabal" in a conference room at the World Affairs Council of San Francisco, 200 Sutter St, SF, CA. The conference was chaired by "Doug, Self-Appointed Advance Man & FlakCatcher for Carl the Unfortunate," though some questions were fielded by what appeared to be a Tibetan monk of the Yellow Hat Kagyupa sect who gave his name as "Gyeshe Tsering, but just call me Rob." The assembled press corps were expecting an address from the Vice-Consul for Inter-Economic Affairs for the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the US, and were understandably perplexed. The transcript that follows is incomplete, and joins the conference during the post-address Q&A period.

[...]
Doug: I told you, Carl Himself will not attain his majority until December 2012, and it will be then that he will be outed as the Unfortunate One and World Savior. Today he's just a confused adolescent trying to blend in at a suburban California junior high.

Chris Rosen, LA Times: Well I still don't get it- is he supposed to be the Christ or the Antichrist?

Doug: That depends on one's perspective, which sect of Christianity one adheres to. Carl will also be claimed by Buddhists as the Maitreya, the Buddha reborn, the Jews as the real M'kheia, certain Shia will posit he's the return of the 12th Imam, what else?

Tibetan Ron: The Sunnis will see him as the False Prophet, the Hindu will see an incarnation of Shiva, uh, some UFO nuts will make a convincing case that he's actually an alien--

Doug: So you see who you'll see will depend on where you're looking from... the point is Carl will not, and is not any of these messiahs or archfiends, he's just a regular guy who wants to be left alone, but owing to his unusual talents and bad timing he's due to be the focus of all this worldwide projection, wish-fulfillment, and the resulting confusion and disarray is what we're trying to head off here today...

Cynthia deAngeles, AP: But is he good or evil?

Doug: (sighs)

Tibetan Ron: Good and evil are diseases of the mind...

Jeremy Farrell, Oakland Tribune: If, as you say, he unilaterally declares the end of private property and abolition of money, who will get, say, the nice big yachts?

Doug: Look, once everyone realizes that property is theft and the insatiable accumulation of consumer goods is a substitute for meaning, for meaningful human interactions which are the true things of value, once that happens whoever happens to get the yacht will seem supremely unimportant. If you want to go yachting, you get the yacht- when you're done anybody else who wants the yacht gets it. If you want to hog the yacht, so be it. But you won't--

Jeremy Farrell: Bullshit! Everybody will want the yacht, and there won't be enough yachts to go around!

Doug: So we'll build more yachts. But the main point you seem to be missing is this preoccupation with property is actually a subversive simulation of novelty, a substitute for meaning, and you're gonna feel a whole lot better once you own up to that.

Jeremy Farrell (sotto voce): Yeah, right...

Rajiv Gupta, San Jose Mercury News: If there's no more money why will people go to work?

Doug: People will go to work because they want to- humans tend to want to do things, and that won't change. What will change is people doing things only for money- people will be free to identify their heart's desire and do that, and as a result will do what they do better and happier. The day after Carl's Pointing Out of the Painfully Obvious everyone will still go to work like before, the stores will be open and stocked as ever, only you won't need or want money. Money is paper and metal and the rest is just a consensual illusion maintained for convenience. After the Pointing Out money will suddenly appear to everyone as inconvenient and not a little bit absurd...

(Unidentified Female Reporter): How does this Carl know all this is coming down?

Doug: As we said at the outset, Carl is even now experiencing what the Hindu call siddhi powers. He's not exactly bound in time and space the same way you and I are, and among his powers is an ability to forsee various probable futures. He's just getting his sea-legs now, and that's why he panicked when he saw all the world's religions simultaneously claiming him as either the Messiah or False Messiah, and the confusion that would ensue. He, and us are hoping that by pointing out this potential unfortunate turn of events we can avoid it, though to be honest I'm beginning to have doubts any of this is going to work...

Jeremy Farrell: If all the world governments disappear overnight who will deliver the mail, or decide where to build dams, or--

Doug: There'll still be administrators, people who are good at and want to organize human effort, what will disappear is the need for coercive government, for the surrender of individual human autonomy for rule from above. After the Pointing Out people will assume a responsibility they've always had but have traditionally ceded to the state... If there's no criminals, there's no need for cops, and the minute people cop to the Unpleasant Truth world governments will just disappear, drop off like an archaic and obsolete body organ...

Jeremy Farrell: But who will be in charge?

[here the tape ends abruptly]